Catalogue of Brand Material.
71
Rites : Cake or toast dipped in cider, put in branches or fork of tree, with rhyme ^ and shouts ; frequently guns fired
" Rough music " often added
Cider poured or sprinkled on trees ; dancing round them
Buckets of cider with roasted apples drunk in orchard, boy hoisted into branches, trees pelted with apples -
Trees struck or tapped with sticks while rhyme recited
Cow-horn blown at foot of trees - . - -
Unlucky to crop to omit Wassailing
LOCALITY.
Devon, Dorset, Somer- set. Dorset.
Cornwall, 1816.
Devon (Torquay).
Surrey (Warlingham), Sussex, Kent.
Surrey, Sussex (Chailey).
{?■) 2. Wassailing Com and Cattle,
Twelfth Eve - - - Herefdsh., Glos. Thirteen fires lighted on wheatfield ; farmer, men, and
friends toast each other in cider. Oxen in " wainhouse " severally toasted in ale. 2 Cake stuck on horn of leading ox, thrown off, becomes
perquisite of bailiff or of farmer's wife.
(j) 3. The Wassailing Bough, wessel- bob, wesley-bob.
- " Stand fast, root ! bear well, top !
Pray God send a good howling crop ! Hats full, caps full, dree bushel-bags full I
{cresc.) Now, Now, Now !" (Firearms discharged).
( Dorset variant. )
-Toast. " Here's to thee, Benbow, and to thy white iiorn. God send thy master a good crop of corn, Of wheat, rye and barley, and all sorts of grain, Vou eat your oats and I'll drink my beer, May the Lord send us all a happy New Year I "
Cf. also Mrs. Leather's Herefordshire, p. 95.
